I think it is important that we reach out to encourage our political representatives to better our legal system for refugees and other immigrants. I have reached out to my two senators and congressman, and have pasted below what I sent to Senator Crapo. Feel free to copy any portion of this that you agree with to send to your representatives. Also, please comment if this post has prompted you to make an effort to make your voice heard, so I'll know what progress is being made!
Dear Senator Crapo:
[One sentence about who I am and where I'm from.] Through church and other service and legal experience, I have associated with many refugees and other immigrants. I am more politically conservative than liberal, but I feel that it would be morally and economically good for the United States to ease restrictions on immigrants. I hope to have conservatives in power again soon in the federal government, but in the meantime I hope Republicans and Democrats can be unified in improving immigration law.
I will give some very specific ideas, but I am basically supportive of any reform that both eases the process of obtaining legal status in the U.S. and simplifies the system so that lawyers, and ideally even poor immigrants without lawyers, can predict what will happen with their immigration cases.
Specifically, I believe that anybody willing to travel to a United States border, pay for or find sponsorship for the costs of immigration processing, and comply with safety requirements (fingerprinting, ankle monitors if deemed a risk for some reason, etc.) should be granted some sort of legal status here. I think that those with identification documents from countries we are at peace with should be admitted same-day, and admission after a few weeks of investigation for those from countries that are not at peace with the U.S. or who do not have documents. I acknowledge that my suggestion of a few weeks is somewhat pulled out of thin air; I acknowledge there are risks, but unless evidence clearly proves otherwise, I am inclined to think that the process of months or years can be greatly shortened. Additionally, I believe those who are found without legal status, associated with criminal charges or otherwise, should have fines imposed against them, but not be threatened with deportation. My reasons are 1) to allow immigrant families to succeed and stay together, 2) to gain economic benefits for the country as a whole, 3) to know who is entering the country, and 4) to incentivize other countries' leaders to improve their treatment of their people.
1) People who are willing to leave their country do so because they see far better opportunities here than in their home country. Deporting or prohibiting entry of somebody stops him or her from enjoying those opportunities. Additionally, it harms the family members of that person, who, at least in the case of deportation, must all accept banishment with that person or lose that person from their life. Of course, incarcerating criminals harms the criminals' families as well. The painful impact of enforcing criminal laws is part of the reason that the Constitution provides "due process" and that legislators attempt to create proportional punishments. Immigration law does much worse at providing due process and proportionate consequences, and additionally families sometimes suffer more because immigration proceedings and deportation can make maintaining family relationships even more difficult than criminal proceedings and punishment.
On a related note, our criminal laws suffice to punish crime; I do not see why an immigrant must suffer both criminal penalties and immigration penalties for a crime where a native-born American need only suffer criminal penalties. I think that both defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys find the situation very strange; either an immigrant receives the same criminal consequences as non-immigrants and then receives dramatically harsher overall consequences, or the immigrant is given special treatment in the criminal process as lawyers and judges in the criminal system strive to avoid the draconian immigration consequences. Additionally, except in rare circumstances, I do not think that other countries are any better equipped at helping/protecting against convicts that the U.S. sends to them than the U.S. can. In other words, if an American-born person deserves 30 days in jail for a DUI, then I believe an immigrant deserves 30 days in jail for a similar DUI, without the addition of banishment. I also do not think that the world becomes better by sending people convicted of DUIs to their home countries, rather than helping them transition out of prison here in the U.S., where they often have been living for many years.
2) Free trade and the free flow of people has always created some temporary harm to some people. Overall, however, allowing employers to find employees who can work at the lowest cost will lead to lower prices for consumers, and the benefit to consumers outweighs the harm to native U.S. employees who may have had a drop in wages. This is because resources are being better used as people are free to work at the locations where there is the most mutual benefit between employer and employee. Some of the native U.S. employees will be pushed into higher-skilled work. To the extent that welfare benefits may attract some immigrants, the U.S. could require an initial period where new immigrants are deemed "visitors" or "transitioning to citizenship" and are not allowed to receive certain government benefits during that time period.
3) Immigration laws fall far short of actually stopping the flow of immigration as they intend, and so many immigrants enter undocumented. This harms the ability of economists and others to do accurate studies, and it inhibits law enforcement in their efforts to stop certain crimes that are hard to detect where there is little documentation. Allowing more legal immigration will decrease the illegal/undocumented immigration.
4) I share the dream that America can be a beacon of freedom, and can send the message that is on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor,/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." In addition to being a place where persecuted people can find refuge, I think that welcoming people from countries ruled by tyrants can prompt those leaders to improve so that they do not lose their subjects. Unfortunately, the UN often has more refugees than countries are willing to accept, leading to long waits in refugee camps. This may often lead to people settling in their awful conditions in their home countries, feeling they are unwelcome in other places. While refugees will have a hard time getting started in a new country, families like mine would like to sponsor or at least mentor a refugee family. Unfortunately, even without sponsorship, some refugees may prefer to be in the U.S. with nothing than in a war-torn and persecution-filled country. My family would love to brainstorm with you about how families like mine might give partial sponsorship, doing grocery shopping with or for a refugee family, for example, in such a way that refugee families have an increased chance of coming to the United States and succeeding.
Thank you for your service and your time in reading this. I hope to be able to talk to you on the phone or by some other means to be able to see what may be getting in the way of support for changes to the immigration system and to learn how I can help.
Rees Atkins
[phone number]
CC: Colin St. Maxens, Legislative Assistant over Immigration
